CHAPTER XIX

RENFRO IS KIDNAPED.

Renfro’s next question brought Mary Dugan to her feet. “Were there any Complaint calls in?” he asked. “Did Morrison or any one call up from the office or--”

“Hooch,” Mary was herself again in spite of her weariness, in spite of the pile of dishes, and the excitement thru which she had passed. “There were several calls for you and all from the office, and I told them a plenty too, how you’d won the turkeys and had to be allowed to bring them home in peace, and then when they just kept a callin’ I just took the receiver and left it off the hook without paying any attention to the buzzer till your maw heard and came and put it on the hook.”

“But that settled them,” Mary’s voice was full of pride. “For none of them called again.”

“Oh, well they all got their papers all right--even Captain Pete,” Renfro’s voice was weary. “But I do hate to have a lot of complaints go into the office like must have gone in tonight.”

[Illustration:

There were two people doing the work. Renfro knew that, because one tied his feet while the other bound his hands. They worked in the hedge. ]

Then he remembered something else. “Did the minister send the addresses where he wanted the turkeys delivered?”

Mary had to hear the story of the way the turkeys had been won so early in the game. When Renfro told her that a great deal of credit was due her, that her going to choir practice Friday night made him think of the help of the church, she beamed at him.

And then she told him of some new plans she had made for working together on the kidnaping mystery. The Hyacinth Reading Club with its extra cooking had taken all of her time that day. Captain Pete had gone next door with rabbits. The cook there had told her of his arrival and his departure with more than a half dozen of the same.

“Now allus before he’s come here when he had even a rabbit left,” Mary was convinced. “So I know he is suspicious of us.”

Renfro was thinking of the experiences he had had that night, and was making decisions. No, he wouldn’t tell Mary about them yet. He wanted to be sure the man at Captain Pete’s was his man; he wanted to see him either in daylight or in a light which would show his eyebrows up a little better. He wanted to be sure they matched with the missing parts.

And then he rose and went to his room. Very slowly he undressed, waited until it was quiet below, slipped down stairs and to the drawer in the kitchen cupboard, in which Mary kept her Bible. Then he took out the two packages containing the missing eyebrows.

Yes, it would be better for him to carry them for a few days. He might meet the man on the street, or in a store and after seeing him while memory was still strong, he wanted to compare with it the parts of the eyebrows which he had taken from the windows of Judge Wier’s home.

He turned his trousers pockets inside out, then those of his coat, surveyed the motley collection in each, replaced the different articles in them and shook his head. His eyebrows would not be safe in such a lot of things as these. He looked around the room and then he saw his cap.

With a bound he had it in his hand. The band inside was deep and strong and loose--all just the way he wanted it to be for a good hiding place. He knew that telegraph messenger boys carried messages in their caps. With great care he sewed an envelope inside that band in which he had sealed the two smaller packages.

Before he went to bed that night he did several little things he had wanted to do for a long time--wrote a letter to a chum in another town, counted up his balance in the bank and made out his Christmas shopping list. He even straightened his dresser, made a memorandum about delivering the charity turkeys, went to the window, and looked out at the neighborhood for a time. He felt queer--neither elated nor depressed, but quite as if a different sort of an experience from any he had known, loomed before him.

He was glad they had taken his picture at the office. If anything happened to him--

He laughed boyishly. If he did happen to find the place where Helen Wier was being kept then they too would be glad they had his picture. That happy thought sent him to bed and to sleep so fast that it was quite late when he awoke.

The day seemed to rush by. His mind was on one thing though he heard of many others. His fame in winning the turkeys had spread thru Grant high school, thanks to Jimmy Noel and his crew of helpers. The teachers congratulated him; the boys praised him, and some of the girls he knew best were inclined to try to twit him.

But he hardly heard them. Before him there loomed the big house in which the old man had mended the tea kettle, the cabin in which Captain Pete and his strange guest had quarreled, and the old woman, whose wearing the scarf had made her have some connection with the mystery. And always each picture showed to him the fierce, cruel face the old man assumed when his anger was aroused.

He was early on his route that night and delivered all his papers with precision. Directly after supper he was going to tell Mary the whole story and see if she would go with him to the cabin and big house once more. That was the best he was sure.

But he didn’t get to tell Mary. While he was at the supper table there was a call from the office for him--a complaint from on his route. He took the number, went back to the table to finish his dessert and to listen to his mother give a monologue on the dangers of carrying a paper route.

Carrying complaints on such nights as this was sure to give him pneumonia some time she argued. People were careless with their papers. No doubt the boys often left them at these complainers’ homes and then they--

Renfro started at her charge. Why he remembered now that he had left a paper at that number they had given him at the office. That was the number of the house where the little crippled girl sat at the window and watched for him--a long, low house without any paint and with a tin roof on the front porch, which roof was about in the same condition as that of the big house at which the mystery was deepening.

He went back to the telephone, called the office, and asked for the number again. He might have heard wrong he thought. Exactly the same number was given him again. He wanted to tell the manager he remembered leaving the paper there. The little crippled girl had herself opened the window that evening for it, but he knew that an argument would only make his mother more uneasy, more set against his continuing with Old Grief.

Now that he had been successful she declared he should have a better route, his own home or one in the business part of town. If once she conferred with Mr. Bruce who had offered him such a route, Renfro knew it would be very hard for him to continue with Old Grief.

“And,” he told himself, “I don’t want to leave there until I have the circulation worked up to 80% of the number of residents on that route.”

He stepped out into the dark street, fumbled his way around the house to the side porch where his bicycle had been left, but did not take it. There was a puncture in the front tire and it was flat. He walked to the corner and here took a car. Car fare was a minor consideration now that he needed time. He would hurry back, tell Mary about the story and perhaps then when she had all her work out of the way she would go scouting with him.

He dropped off the car at the nearest corner, and with the paper under his arm scurried down the street. Past the big house, next door to the little one he hurried, and then in sight of the one with the tin roof and the little crippled girl. His feet suddenly slipped on something which felt like a carpet of banana skins; down he went clutching at a hedge to break his fall, and then someone clutched him.

Something strong--it felt like a band of leather was passed over his mouth. Both of his hands were caught behind him and a sharp thong passed around his legs. But his eyes were left free. As they tied his hands behind his back he wondered why he had not been blindfolded. And a little later he learned.

There were two people doing the work. Renfro knew that,--because one tied his feet while the other bound his hands. They worked in the hedge.

Renfro wondered then why the city council had allowed all the tall hedges to stand in this old part of the town. Had they never seen the possibilities they offered to thieves and people like these? Evidently these men had realized them fully, for in giving a number from which to send a complaint they had chosen one next door to one of these hedges.

And then he realized that one of his captors was a woman. She moved in front of him and her skirts swished against his knees. That discovery made him more furious than ever. He twisted his body, shoved with his shoulders, and pushed against her with all his might. The next minute he was firmly lifted by the other captor, from whose strength he knew was a man, carried out into the street and deposited on a small wagon there.